Leading Industry Organizations Affirm ‘There’s a Better Way To Negotiate Contracts’

WASHINGTON — ConsensusDOCS, a coalition of 22 leading construction industry organizations, has published ConsensusDOCS Procedures, which describe how the coalition organizations collaborate to develop model construction contract documents and forms that advance the project's best interest. The Procedures set an example for openness and transparency. Rather than approach negotiations as a zero-sum gain among competing interests, ConsensusDOCS emphasizes a mutually beneficial approach that leads to better project results. In order to develop standard contracts that foster better party relations in today’s design and construction industry, ConsensusDOCS has taken a new and better process to collaboratively draft truly consensus contracts.

“Contracts help define business relationships,” said E. Colette Nelson, executive vice president of the American Subcontractors Assn. Inc., Alexandria, VA, and chair of the ConsensusDOCS Business and Marketing Advisory Council. “Early on, ConsensusDOCS made a decision that its process for developing contract language for the industry would be transparent and inclusive. The ConsensusDOCS Procedures describe how the ConsensusDOCS’ mission of collaborating in the best interest of a project materializes at the operational level. The Procedures guide the ConsensusDOCS coalition, but their collaborative approach may also inspire others to re-think the old, stereotyped push risk to the weakest party’S approach to negotiating contracts.”

For a complete list of the member organizations participating in ConsensusDOCS, for more information, and to purchase and download ConsensusDOCS, visit www.ConsensusDOCS.org.

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